There’s a certain kind of person who doesn’t ask for permission. They don’t wait for ideal conditions, perfect timing, or someone else to build the bridge. When the path isn’t obvious or doesn’t exist at all, they adapt. They find a way, or they make one.
That mindset has always lived at the core of Hook & Barrel.
It’s not just about the outdoors. It’s about resilience. It’s about understanding that comfort is earned through discomfort (and don’t get too comfortable!), and that the lessons learned along the way tend to matter far more than a deer head on the wall.
That’s why this issue’s Steve Harvey cover story resonates so deeply with me.
Before the stages, the television lights, and the success that most people associate with Steve Harvey, there was a man sleeping in his car, chasing a dream that offered no guarantees. A man who survived by carrying a fishing rod, a skillet, and a ton of determination from pond to pond across the South.
For Steve, going fishing wasn’t simply a hobby. It was survival.
When food wasn’t guaranteed, he’d cast a line. When money ran dry, he cleaned fish on the bank and cooked them on cast-iron grills at rest stops. When he was told to leave someone else’s pond (and had to throw his dinner back into the water), he didn’t quit. He made a promise to himself, and he kept going.
That’s what “find a way, make a way” really means. It means refusing to let circumstances define you or your ceiling. It means understanding that humility and hunger often arrive together. And that both can be powerful teachers.
In the outdoors, you see this mindset clearly. Fish don’t care who you are. Weather doesn’t care about your résumé. Nature doesn’t bend to your status. You either figure it out or you don’t, and that truth humbles everyone eventually.
But what makes Steve Harvey’s story especially powerful isn’t just where he came from; it’s what he chose to do once he made it.
Instead of closing the chapter on those hard years, he reopened it for others. Like the old man in the poem, “The Bridge Builder,” who pauses to build a bridge he’ll never need himself, Steve understands that the real measure of success isn’t how far you’ve crossed, it’s who you help cross behind you.
Through his mentoring camps, he’s using fishing and time outdoors to give young men something many of them have never had — space to breathe, positive role models, accountability, and perspective. He’s showing them that growth happens when you’re uncomfortable, when you’re challenged, and when you’re stripped of distractions. And in a time when so much feels divided, that matters.
That’s the spirit we aimed to capture throughout this issue. You’ll find it in our conversations with people who’ve built careers and character the hard way: from the kitchen with Chef Michael Hunter, to the woods learning to become a lumberjack, to the stage with 49 Winchester, where success came only after years of showing up.
It’s echoed in profiles of elite hunters like Kristy Titus and Olympic champion shooters like Vincent Hancock, in gear stories that reward curiosity and discipline, and even in the unlikely corners, like Jess McGlothlin’s deep dive into modern Amazon fishing, where adaptation is the difference between frustration and progress.
Or my personal turkey hunt with Michael Waddell, a man who built his career from the literal dirt floor up.
Across these pages, every story reinforces the same lesson Steve learned long before fame: When the path isn’t clear, you keep moving, keep learning, and find a way to make it work. And that’s a lesson worth carrying — with or without a fishing rod in hand.
So, as you turn the page, we invite you to think about your own version of “find a way, make a way.” Where you adapted and pushed through. Where you learned something about yourself when the odds weren’t in your favor. Because the people who shape their lives and their legacies aren’t always the ones with the best starting position. They’re the ones who refused to stop casting.
